If I could end any relationship exactly where I wanted to (assuming, of course, that every relationship must end), I'd choose the highest point, the part where you look over at someone at night and think to yourself, "This is it. This is the one. We're never going to leave each other, ever."

Of course, this is irony at its most base. In fact, if one actually does leave at this point it's not truly irony (because it's intentional, you see) but, rather, a very cynical brother of common sense.

That was summer, not long -- maybe a month or so -- after we had met, and we were close, so close, almost "too close for a lover" as the song goes. Occasionally, she'd look over at me and smile, run her fingers through my hair (it was much longer then), and then turn back to the ocean, flying in her mind with seagulls, dipping and swooning over miles of beaches.

The tape would flip over and mogwai would start playing, a change in pace from Beulah's manic chords. "I love... this music," she would say in this fainting sigh.